English. translation:
1st The Photobiannual of the Russian Museum: Russia, the One They Chose
On two floors of the Marble Palace, a large-scale exhibition of domestic photography is unfolding. Names drown in a sea of surnames, and the colorful chaos of Russian life envelops from all sides. In fact, Russia has such a rich contemporary photography scene that it could easily form more than one museum collection – but whether this achievement can be considered a success for the Russian Museum is still a question.
The project's inception resembled an act of desperation. The organizers of the photobiannual openly admitted that the Russian Museum had nothing to be proud of in the realm of photography and that it was about time to start forming a collection. They therefore chose the format of a grand "junkyard" (the only requirement for participants was Russian citizenship), in order to acquire not only works from well-known photographers but also something more democratic and fresh.
Over four months, from February to May, six thousand photos were submitted to the museum's website. From these, a jury, consisting not only of in-house specialists but also of Pavel Khoroshilov, Deputy Minister of Culture of Russia, and a couple of city experts, selected around five hundred in two rounds.
The selected works were divided into several categories, mounted in identical passe-partouts, and displayed at the Marble Palace. Now, from this photographic biomass, the jury must choose three winners, with the most likely candidates being one professional from art photography, one glossy magazine photographer, and one unknown owner of a "wide-angle" camera from the provinces.
Moreover, every visitor to the exhibition and the museum's website, where the catalog of works is displayed, can vote for the potential winner of the audience's choice award. Five hundred pieces might seem like an overwhelming amount to view, but there's a significant advantage here: at larger exhibitions, the intentions of the organizers are much clearer than at smaller, more intimate ones. The photobiannual can indeed be seen as an indicator of the museum's mindset.
Above all, this concerns the "photography of reality," which at the exhibition is clearly distinguished from art photography – photographs as part of contemporary art. Among the hundreds of images, only a few are unsuitable for children, and even they are not particularly scary or disgusting. The Georgian-South Ossetian conflict? Here's the South Ossetian special forces, and a local woman, in a headscarf, tearfully expresses gratitude as she kisses one of the soldier's hands. In another photograph by the same author, Andrei Chepakin, cows pass by an abandoned corpse – it's something you must show, but let it be ordinary, without tragedy. A fire at the Badaevsky warehouses? It's already extinguished, thank you, the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The Trinity-Izmailovsky Cathedral is burning? Yes, it was, but it looks beautiful, and nearby, there's a similar flame – it's just coke being delivered.
The nudes section doesn't go beyond the softest and most modest erotica: nymphs shyly hiding their faces under their hair, and unruly young men shaving their armpits.
Everything else seems straight out of a politically balanced textbook on contemporary history. The entrances are shabby, the houses have holes, the roads are impassable – but the people! They are spiritual, confident in their bright future, there’s no vodka in their hands, and in their eyes, there’s no despair or fear. Not a single tearful face throughout the exhibition! They're picking Ivan-tea, celebrating a wedding, fishing through the ice, playing the accordion, sunbathing in the cold. The expanses are vast, the meadows are full of grain, and the architectural monuments are grand. Veterans in medals, the elderly radiate resilience, the flags are red, and the portraits feature Stalin. Children sometimes smile and even play, but more often they're full of thoughts beyond their years. The religious section is striking in its official deadness: endless processions, kissing crosses, sprinkling with holy water, girls in headscarves, divine light. Only one image of migrant workers praying during a prayer session – but it's not even part of the exhibition itself, only available on the website.
The "reality" photos are catastrophically lacking in humor, or even natural emotions. Only art photography attempts humor, but even that leans towards staged setups, glossy effects, and special effects. There are very few deep, ambiguous works here, the kind that can rival leading photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson in terms of clarity and sharpness.
Perhaps the only exceptions are "Monument" by Vladimir Raytman (1980), where a short bureaucrat gazes into the distance from beneath his hand, perched on a cardboard box, and "One" by Ilya Zelenetsky (2008), showing a holy fool grandmother against a backdrop of a noisy, smoking, giggling youth. But the issue isn’t only the sharpness of the participants – it's the inherent tendentiousness of the project itself. Judging by the photobiannual, Russia has no skinheads, no pagans, no marches of dissenters, no clerics in cassocks hoarding wealth, and no corrupt policemen. The main question after walking through the Marble Palace: what about the other five and a half thousand photos? Is the self-censorship of the Russian Museum just a continuation of the self-censorship of the people?
Olga Luzina, Fontanka.ru
